Jasonic's Favorites: Spider-Man 3
Hello, and good evening, Internet!
As with the previous Spider-Man reviews, this is not copied from my old blog, but rather reorganized with more mature thoughts. Enjoy!
Released in 2007, Spider-Man 3 was the highly anticipated third installment of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man Trilogy. Riding on the success of Spider-Man 2, this threequel had a lot of hype to live up to and to some it did while others were less than pleased with it at the time of release. It was the highest grossing Spider-Man film at the time, but the reviews back then made it sound less than favorable back then due to a number of factors that many are aware of nowadays. It was still considered good by many shockingly enough, but the majority thought it was the worst superhero movie of that decade alongside X-Men: The Last Stand especially after the initial success of the trilogy early on. Much of it had to do with studio influence cramming a bunch of characters into the story, the decisions to further complicate Peter and MJ's romance, Peter Parker's emo scenes, and the fact that many after Batman Begins seemed to expect this to be just as dark, but it was still Sam Raimi Spider-Man levels of cheesy -- probably moreso than the others. Oddly enough, this movie has been critically reassessed over time into something a little more favorable with many saying that despite all those factors, it still has a clear end goal -- unlike, say, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 -- solid themes, some great performances, and spawned the heavily favored meme of "Bully Maguire". I did like this movie initially, but hearing what others had to say about it soon made me jump on the bandwagon that it was awful and thus I ripped it apart for years and believed that The Amazing Spider-Man film franchise that rebooted it was a godsend compared to this. Despite that, much of that may have had to do with me being in a bad place in life and looking for something to take my negativity out on rather than being fair toward what the movie tried to do well; now that I've matured beyond that, I think it did a lot of things right in spite of everything. All in all, is it worth a watch even in today's media landscape? Let's throw on our Spider-Man masks, fill up our web shooters, and swing right into this review of Spider-Man 3!
*SPOILERS* (however, most on the Internet know this movie, if not its discourse, plus the Bully Maguire meme so maybe none of it will be a surprise)
The story takes place about a year after Spider-Man 2; in it, Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) has become the biggest public figure in the city and is far along into his relationship with Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) to the point of considering engagement. Meanwhile, Harry Osborn (James Franco) refuses to talk to Peter or listen to him regarding the death of the former's father due to figuring out Peter's identity as Spider-Man. In an attempt on Peter's life, Harry suffers from amnesia and can no longer remember much about himself, reverting back to his happy-go-lucky high school self that Peter and MJ remember. While this happens, escaped convict Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) is attempting to steal money to help his sick daughter, Penny (Perla Haney-Jardine), getting cornered by the cops only to fall into a particle accelerator that then infuses his molecules with sand. Transformed into the "Sandman", Marko continues his crime spree only to get thwarted by Spider-Man during a ceremony for him to obtain the key to the city. Whilst this goes on, Peter is unaware that a black alien "symbiote" crashlanded near him from a meteorite and followed him home; upon him and Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) learning that Marko was the true killer of Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson), Peter is enraged, the symbiote bonding to him and causing his Spider-Man suit to turn black. Although told by his physics teacher, Dr. Curtis Connors (Dylan Baker), to not keep the alien, Peter selfishly does so due to the good feelings it instills with him unaware of the effects its having on his psyche. Upon hearing of Marko's presence still at large, Peter goes after him with vengeance in his heart eventually cornering him and seemingly killing him. With this suit amplifying his aggression, Peter goes full emo on his friends, coworkers including Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), and ends up ruining a lot of what he had planned for his future. With all that's at stake, the city and Spider-Man may never be the same again.
One of people's biggest complaints about this movie is the amount of characters and subplots one could probably gather just from reading all THAT and that's not including the fact that there's a subplot with the presence of Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) being in Peter's class, dating Eddie Brock, giving Spider-Man the key to the city, AND eventually ditching Eddie to be with Peter. In my late teens depressive state, I ripped this movie to shreds for being so promising yet mishandling so many characters by including all these subplots as well as some of their arbitrary actions and the ever-present plot holes. So what do I think of it now? In the present day, I think it's handled okay for the most part. Without all the fat of the Sandman and Gwen Stacy subplots for example, the film does a good job of setting up Peter's pride in the fact that the city loves him and that he finally has the girl of his dreams; however, he lets his glory as Spider-Man get to his head so deeply that he inadvertently pushes MJ away when she's trying to confide in him about the fact that she was let go from her Broadway show. Some have said that this would have made more sense if Peter got the Symbiote earlier than the scene in which he was trying to propose to her, but speaking from experience, I can understand why a person would let their fame get to their head and do stupid things regardless of whether an alien Symbiote is enhancing things like their pride, aggression, etc. In an alternate reality, the film could have been simply about Harry and Sandman being the new villains or Harry and the Symbiote, which eventually becomes Venom; I, personally, think the latter works better even if Raimi's version was going to have the former two -- plus the Vulture in an early draft. Thing is, I have always enjoyed what the Symbiote represents in the sense that some media portrays it as the devil on Spidey's shoulder, tempting or causing him to commit sins that he otherwise wouldn't commit -- like "killing" Sandman or hitting MJ -- and, therefore, I think that it's the better of the two. Regardless of the film squeezing Venom into the last 10-20 minutes for the sake of the final battle, I think this was a more interesting way to end a trilogy. Whereas Star Wars: Return of the Jedi set the standard for triumphant trilogy endings, the darkness and messages of pride caused by the Symbiote ended this trilogy on a whimper, making it more powerful in a way.
As with most of the Spider-Man movies, the acting is pretty decent if not great depending on the actor; Tobey Maguire once again nails the Peter Parker persona even if the Spider-Man side is nearly quipless like usual, but I had fun watching him anyway. While some have complained about him acting immature during the first act, I would say it's justified as he's walking on air with the amount of goodness in his life. This becomes all the more upsetting when he unleashes his angry side on the world and even goes full emo by putting his hair down, strutting and dancing around like a dork, and just being a straight up showoff to everyone. In fact, people used to think his whole "Bully Maguire" act was cringe at first, but now we have the Internet meming him to death, showing the world that it is straight up CINEMA! Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane gets a better chance at being a character more than a figure, her acting just barely going deeper than it already had in the previous two movies; particularly in the scenes where she's angry at Peter, she sounds like she's giving a better attempt at being mad, but it feels restrained to where it doesn't feel real enough -- on top of that, she still does her signature screaming when in danger during the final battle. James Franco, on the other hand, is in the words of Harry in the movie: "So good." Harry getting amnesia with his character resetting has been another thing that upsets people about this movie, but when he's like that, it's clear that James is channeling his first Spider-Man movie persona more than the second and he really nails it! He also gets the chance at being more manipulative and pulling the strings to turn Peter and MJ further against each other, which makes sense for the type of villain he would be upon getting his memories back -- which would have been better if it were the full movie, but I digress. Rosemary Harris is once more an excellent take on classic comics Aunt May and J. Jonah Jameson is still the show stealer with all his scenes and I especially get a good laugh out of the scene where Betty Brant (Elizabeth Banks) is helping him remember his blood pressure medication with the buzzer at his desk. Minor roles like Bryce Dallas Howard's Gwen Stacy are nothing to write home about, but the only thing about her that really screams "Gwen Stacy" is her smarts she portrays in her opening scene -- she is also put in danger toward the beginning and, to many's relief, her screaming is less piercing than MJ's. Topher Grace from That 70s Show ends up being a cheesy, more self-centered Eddie Brock than what people are used to, which many disagree with, but I personally find his personality to be a perfect reflection of what Peter becomes under the influence of the black suit, which makes sense given his eventual transformation into Venom. If any villain actor other than James Franco deserves credit, however, it's Thomas Haden Church's Flint Marko; he's a great actor and his looks suit the role of the Sandman, his line deliveries and attitude toward his daughter being very heartfelt and sincere even in spite of what we're meant to think of him initially. Also shoutout to the silliness that is Eddie and Captain Stacy (James Cromwell) talking casually about the former dating Stacy's daughter while Gwen is DANGLING off the building -- it's cheesy weird, but silly in a way.
The special effects are the best they ever get in the Raimi trilogy. Sandman has a CGI molecular transformation scene very reminiscent of Peter's initial spider bite transformation scene from the first one and the graphics of the close up particles of sand entering Sandman's system look incredible! The initial shot of the sand particles moving when they're super closeup are awesome graphics for 2007 and the initial formation of Sandman is by far the most beautiful and emotional scene in the movie for the special effects it sports as well as the facial expressions Sandman has when recovering the locket. I don't know whether that scene was mocapped to Thomas Haden Church, but they did a darn good job of making it look real! Thanks to the progression of SFX at that point in time, the CGI shots of Spidey and other characters look a lot less like a computer and more "in" with the scenes they're causing meaning that no longer does anything look cartoony -- Spider-Man 2 did well in that regard, but this movie just looks better. Even the Venom Symbiote special effects are done well; the way it crawls along surfaces creepily, folding over itself as it moves with eery white reflections of light glimmering off of it -- if this was a kid's first Spider-Man movie, it could result in nightmares about the Symbiote, but fortunately the alien crawling is the only really scary part. Even the Symbiote's vision in a couple shots is this murky blue filter that creates an otherworldly feel as it creeps along getting glimpses of Peter having nightmares in his room before waking him up by attaching itself to him. There isn't much to say about Harry/New Goblin's special effects other than his CGI model appearing convincing and his fighting style in the suit looking very kinetic as he makes use of his surfboard glider and his gadgets. One instance I can mention of practical effects in this movie is the scarring Harry receives after getting part of his face blown off; the Goblin pumpkin bombs' effectiveness varies throughout the movie in a way that ticks off nitpickers, but the way it scars Harry looks like he received nothing more than a bad facial injury that steadily repaired itself overtime. Since that seems to be makeup, at the very least I can say that they didn't wholly rely on CGI to make this movie.
As wtih most every Raimi Spider-Man movie, the music is one of the most astounding things about it! Taking the helm from Danny Elfman this time around was Christopher Young who seemed to add more to the Spider-Man main title theme by extending it to go along with the extended title sequence first and foremost. His music generally speaking reflects a lot of Elfman's use of bombastic horns in places to emphasize the changes in personality that Spidey and the villains themselves go through, particularly in both the black suit Spider-Man and the Sandman. The Sandman theme, for example, is accompanied by heavy horns to represent his brutality as a supercriminal as well as how big he can get when enraged or getting down to serious business. His horns are very reminiscent of the Doc Ock Suite in the previous version, which seems to be intentional based on the way that Sandman was designed to be a sympathetic brute the way Doc Ock ended up being. The most iconic songs, however, are the songs that represent Symbiote Spider-Man -- in terms of the film score, it's the song "Black Suited Spider-Man Theme"; the accompanying horns emphasize Peter's radical change in personality under the influence of the suit, representing the corruption taking place within him. It it such a good melody that when I find myself thinking of the black suit Spider-Man from this movie, this theme comes to mind -- many also use it as theme music for other representations of the concept in YouTube videos, it's that good! The use of vocal songs is also well done due to the ever popular "People Get Up and Drive Your Funky Soul" associated with the emo Peter Saturday night strut scene; I mentioned before that this was considered cringe back in the day due to the corniness of Peter's interpretation of what he thinks a "cool" guy is like, however, millions have apparently warmed up to it and conider it way funnier than it was received initially. Seeing as it's an old song, it, of course, wasn't specifically made for the movie, but the use of it has become synonymous with emo Peter, Bully Maguire, or whatever you wanna call him and pretty much makes the movie! The song from the tonally imbalanced dance scene also is a jazzy song that got a release and I mentioned even in my old review that many HATED the movie either for this scene or just this scene because of how out of place it was. Regardless, it had a funny soundtrack and allowed the movie's score some musical variety compared to it predecessors. Whatever became of the franchise after that, I am glad that I have warmed up to this movie over time after trashing it initially along with many others.
So in the end, is Spider-Man 3 as bad as everyone said it was? Absolutely, NOT! It was a different take on an end of the trilogy (which would have led to a fourth film had Raimi committed enough), had great themes about how pride ruins people and relationships, some decent to great acting, amazing special effects for its time -- great action scenes for that matter -- and some great accompanying music. Having been one of many proven wrong about this movie with time, I can say that people reassessing it in this day and age was worth the wait as many accepted Bully Maguire for what he was and got different perspectives on how it's supposed to work despite the messes that happened behind the scenes. I stand by my theory that the release of Batman Begins two years prior may have had something to do with this movie's intial mixed reviews because that film pretty much established a darker superhero movie so well that I reckon people were expecting a movie with a darker Spider-Man to follow closely in its footsteps. I was someone who expected exactly that based on the trailers and did not anticipate characters like Gwen to be in the movie due to elements of the black suit being portrayed differently or players like Gwen being not shown at all. As a result, I did like it somewhat, but soon hopped on the bandwagon that much of it didn't work because of me parroting Internet users who ripped this movie apart. How wrong I was? As of now, my opinion has changed and I finally give it a more generous rating of B- and therefore recommend it to everyone who made it this far into the trilogy or for those who wanna see more of Spider-Man in film regardless of the fact that he has been rebooted now TWICE since.
Thank you all for reading and I will see you in the next review!
Comments
Post a Comment